Don’t understand the UK election? Here’s the simple answer…

Gone are the days when power was exchanged between the main political behemoths — Labour and the Conservatives. Recent years have heralded the emergence of several smaller parties with divergent and competing ideologies, each flourishing by tapping into the electorate’s increasingly visceral scorn at the political status quo.

Britain’s “first past the post” voting system (the same used to elect to Congress) was designed to create majority governments — yet for the second election running it will yield no winning margin. That’s because neither the Labour Party nor the Conservatives will get within a piss-length of the post (let alone be the first to cross it) such has been the hemorrhage of voters to the political fringe.

Without sufficient members of parliament (MPs) to form a majority, the two main parties are fated to court potential partners, such as Nigel Farage’s fiercely Eurosceptic UK Independence Party (Ukip), Nicola Sturgeon’s pro-secessionist Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP), and the Liberal Democrats, cohorts in the last coalition, led by Nick Clegg (who are likely to be decimated by voters, thus limiting their influence). The Greens, alongside the nationalist party of Wales (Plaid Cymru) and the unionist DUP of Northern Ireland, complete the undercard.

Backroom negotiations start on May 8; it’s a hand of high-stakes poker with each party gambling on how much of their own agenda they can compromise in exchange for power. The Tories and Ukip form a potential center-right alliance, Labour and the SNP a prospective center-left counterbalance. No combination therein is likely to produce a stable government, with Clegg this week predicting another general election before Christmas.

This is simply democracy working, you’re no doubt squealing at the screen. Yes — a coalition government can (in theory) mean a broader range of interests is represented in Westminster. However, the core vision of Ukip is to take Britain out of the European Union, while the SNP is determined to beak up the United Kingdom.

Current Prime Minister and Conservative Party leader David Cameron has promised to hold a referendum on Britain’s continuing membership of the EU by 2017. The increasing popularity of Ukip, to whom the Tories have been leaking members and MPs, allied to a general suspicion towards Britain’s European partners makes an exit all the more likely, an economically ruinous outcome for both the U.K and the continent.

On the economy, the U.K.’s budget deficit is stuck at 5 percent of GDP and though the last coalition (the Tories and the Lib Dems) cut unemployment, this came at the expense of living standards, with declining wages and soaring house prices disproportionately affecting Britain’s young.

Labour leader Ed Miliband has promised to tackle the deficit with smaller, less painful strides, allied to tax increases for the wealthy, including a levy on houses priced at more than £2 million. All very progressive, but to enact these reforms he’ll need the support of the SNP, who look set to become Britain’s third largest party.

Although the nationalists are unlikely to push for an independence vote in the next parliament (last year’s vote was defeated 55 percent-45 percent) their increasing power makes a second referendum and Scotland’s eventual dismemberment somewhat inevitable — again, with huge economic implications for the U.K. and beyond.

So here’s Sophie’s choice for Britain: leave the EU or end the UK. Think upon that the next time you’re getting charged up about Hillary’s donors or Ted’s hosts.